Have you ever experienced a moment in your life where your energy level was extremely low, so low that you woke up already tired, or even you could not close for more than a couple of hours a night your eyes; no wish to do anything; losing lean mass in favor of fat and appearance of water retention? Well, that might be due to cortisol, the stress hormone! It is so easy to say, keep calm, don’t stress yourself, but in practice, once you realize you are stressed, it is already too late. It is anyway possible to fight against stress but you need a lot of patience and self-control.. sometime even to be egoist and selfish! Doesn’t matter.. it’s for your health and well-being!
If you are an athlete or simply a sporty person like me, you need to be aware that chronic level of cortisol in your body might heavily compromise your performance or your general fitness condition. Personally, I experience often high level of cortisol in my body but I have got to know clearly when this happen and also what I need to do in order to keep it under control. Everyone is unique also in the way reacting to stress and coming back to a more relax and peaceful life. I won’t deep dive into cortisol biochemistry, as you find tons of scientific information online and in letterature, instead I want to share my way to fight against excessive production of it.
I need anyway to specify that cortisol is an hormone which is essential for our health. It regulates glycaemia during physical activity and diet, and it has an anti- inflammatory action. What is problematic is a chronic high level of cortisol and often that is due to stress.
First of all, you need to find the root cause of your stress, what is really making you feel uncomfortable or which behaviors, persons, situations, activities could be potentially a source of stress for you and then you can start work on it!
In order to find out what makes me feel stressed, I started looking at symptoms. Here the most evident:
- All of a sudden, I start arguing with everybody or complaining for everything, that is not the way I am;
- I wake up in the morning and I am already so tired;
- my eyes look a bit sad, swollen, empty.. (for that I use make up);
- when I workout, I feel there is barely energy for the first 10 minutes warm up.. my muscles are tired and my body still asleep;
- when performing a cardiovascular workout, I have difficulty breathing properly or my heart bit is immediately too fast;
- I lose lean mass;
- my skin looks unhealthy (not so smooth and hydrated, appearance of some reddish spots or dry zones) well this could be also my age!
Those are for me clear signals that I am pushing too hard somewhere or I am doing something I do not like to do, therefore my body is in a stressed situation. Cortisol is produced by our body with the scope of inhibit body functions which are not so important, like increasing lean mass, keeping the skin glowing, stocking energy for extra activities like working out etc., in favor of vital organs. This should be a temporary condition, extinguishing in short term.. if we keep having high level of cortisol for long time, we might collapse and creating a chronic status potentially leading to sickness. Furthermore, chronic high level of cortisol leads to reduce action of thiroid hormone, increased appetite and less ability to dissipate calories meaning getting probably fat.
In my case, and probably the case of many of you, the root causes of that stressed condition might be:
- not taking a day of rest from physical activity: I have a tendency to workout everyday and to push my body at the limit trying new exercises or intensify the classical ones. Obviously it is not sustainable, therefore I built up my fitness program alternating cardio and strength workout including always stretching sessions. Regarding strength workout, I have at least three sessions a week with the following subdivision: legs - arms & abs - back & butt!
- having many to dos that I can not dedicate enough time for myself: everyone has always plenty of things to do ( and even more when having a family ) but it is not a reason to keep skipping doing what we really like ( reading, running, singing, fishing .. whatever ). As I always say, it’s a matter of organization: everyone has got same amount of time, 24 hour a day and the freedom to decide how to make use of it;
- being too long far from my home and my environment: I am a kind of person who definitely like traveling and discovering new places but if that does not compromise my routine and healthy time at home. If you are like me, probably you suffer being months away from your nest. Again, proper planning is the solution.
- not having time completely alone: loneliness has never been my fear. The time I spend alone is absolutely healthy for my wellbeing and for my relationship with others. I dedicate that time to my creativity and to free my mind from the inputs i receive every day.
So in few words, what count for me is time! What about you?
As nutrition expert, I always search solutions first from food. Here some tips how to use food or meal time to keep under control cortisol:
- avoid low carbs diet: welcome to carbohydrates then;
- divide carbohydrates in several meals. So avoid zone diets;
- proteins and coffee are also increasing cortisol ( avoid it in the period of time where you feel really stressed).
Last two tips:
- sleep sleep sleep.. but do not concentrate sleeping recovery only in one weekend, instead try to sleep better and longer every night;
- Concentrate on living your present and do not think about the past or the future: yesterday is history - tomorrow is a mystery but today is a wonderful gift!
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